How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Bleet
Probably less than you already are — as long as no one has started the vehicle. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to the engine until something draws it through the fuel system — the ignition priming your pump, the starter, or driving on its own. So the fair answer to the first question everyone in Bleet asks, "have I wrecked it?", is normally no. Petrol in Diesel is who to call, with the motor left off, so it remains that way. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge how far it's gone, and how to stop it from happening a second time: that's the remainder of this page.
The motor and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
On its way through an engine, diesel has two jobs. It lubricates first, and after that does it burn. Very fine tolerances go into your injectors and your high-pressure pump, and just the diesel flowing through stops their surfaces grinding together.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the lubrication a fuel system needs, leaving a pump running on the blend to wear itself. It is equally made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the knocking.
Combined, those leave the shape of the issue clear. Not contact but circulation is what causes the harm. Where that petrol is only in that tank, it's a problem of fuel, nothing more. The beginning of a mechanical problem is a pump that has been labouring on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to your injectors downstream.
Four situations our technicians see around Bleet: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there can be. Only that tank has petrol in it, so the job is emptying the tank and rinsing the system where the car stands. This situation can only truly happen at a forecourt: anywhere else, the car got there by being driven.
Started for a moment, or just the ignition on. Petrol has left your tank and got to the filter and your lines, because the fuel system has been primed. Drain, flush, see to the fuel filter: still usually easy.
A few miles driven, and your pump has spent each of them running on diluted fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel put through the whole system: that's this work, and the way the vehicle was driven counts as much as the miles. Driving the kids to The Mead Community Primary School is one kind of trip. A run as far as Bath, under 10 miles away, is a very different job. So is any distance on the M4, under 15 miles from Bleet, where the motor has been labouring hard the whole time.
Driven until it protested. Rattling, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. That's your engine telling you its fuel no longer is acting like diesel. Leave it where it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on A350. Permanent damage is very uncommon when a car is stopped soon, and the drain and flush-through that still come first deal with it.
Petrol in a diesel myths Bleet motorists hear
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a fuller tank, still the same mix. The idea behind the advice — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong.
"Newer diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the opposite. At higher pressure, through smaller parts: that is how a current diesel moves its fuel, and so the lubrication matters more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, so no harm done" — the myth that catches more motorists than any other. The motorist of a petrol engine fed diesel normally has no choice but to stop, because it will not run, and the harm stops there. Nothing looks to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, as it usually does; meanwhile your pump wears. Being able to run is not the same as being fine.
Myth: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It is an old workaround, meant for another problem. What petrol has weakened stays weakened, and that petrol remains inside your tank anyway.
Once your engine has been run, part of that petrol is in the filter and the fuel lines, not the tank — and your next start pulls it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain the tank yourself and you're sorted" does not hold. On top of that, petrol cleared into a can by the road is genuinely hazardous.
How petrol ends up: petrol in a diesel
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and nobody means to do it. One way only, because of the nozzles: the narrower petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one mostly won't fit a petrol motor. That's how the forecourt makes it straightforward.
The moment habit stops matching your car is the moment it occurs. A new motor, a hire car or a courtesy car. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. A hurried fill en route to Trowbridge with a train to catch. Years of petrol motors behind you, a diesel Renault Megane in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. Throw in a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and habit wins.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Bleet
- Check the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are generally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what counts.
- Inspect your filler flap. Many motors state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in a vehicle you do not know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember, in a home with one of each.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you pick up the nozzle — every time a new or hired car gets its first tank. It sounds daft. It works.
- Tuck the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you are thinking about something else.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels come with a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for motors without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- Less petrol means a thinner blend, so stop the moment you realise — though remembering that your next stage is unchanged. It is still not to start the vehicle.
Put petrol in a diesel around Bleet already?
In that case, there's only a short order of things. Do not crank it, and do not switch your ignition on. If you are still at the forecourt — BP or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle away from the pump. What got in, about how much, and if it's run: tell us those when you ring 0333 366 0103.
Corrosion and deposits are the issue with AdBlue, where petrol means lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Bleet page.
What makes one Bleet petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
The four scenarios above are four separate tasks, so no single price for this would be fair. Which of them you are in is mostly what moves the cost. The ratio counts next, meaning how much of your tank is petrol, followed by the location of your car and whether getting to it is safe for our van.
That is why we ask three queries before quoting rather than after: what got in, how much, and whether it has run. A range becomes a straight figure when those answers are in.
About Bleet itself
Bleet is a small locality in Wiltshire, situated inland at an elevation of 49 metres, approximately 9.8 miles from the city of Bath. Bleet lies near other local places such as Cold Harbour and Ashton Common, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing. Bleet is also relatively close to the larger town of Bullenhill, and is about 88 miles west of London.
Fuel drain cover across Wiltshire, Bleet included
Our vans answering petrol in diesel jobs in Bleet, in the BA postcode area, also work the locations around it, Cold Harbour, Ashton Common and Bullenhill among them. You need not bring your vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all locations we drain.
At the petrol pump in Bleet, still?
Nothing beats it: that's where you now are. Keep the car switched off, and ring.